Mastodawn

I am leaving the university system, possibly forever, at the end of this month. I will be living in the woods, studying mathematics and (hopefully) farming enough to survive. I have posted an essay explaining why I'm doing this on my website:

https://aten.cool/leaving_university_2026.html

#math #research #academia #USpol #mathematics #trans #transgender #farming #solarpunk #fascism #university

Leaving the university

@caten good on ya

@caten The fediverse has other enthusiasts living in the woods. You can look for your people with the free hashtags. #growyourown, #gardening, #allotment.

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Kate Bowles 13h ago

@caten @Broadfork

So looking forward to learning more about how the farming goes. Good luck.

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Charlotte Aten 13h ago

@kate @Broadfork Thanks! I'll be sure to post about it.

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DougMerritt (log😅 = 💧log😄)13h ago

@caten
Good luck, I hope things work out the way you want.

Or if they don't, please don't hesitate to then find something that *does* work for you.

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Niles Johnson 13h ago

@caten Thanks for writing that up, and sharing it. The line about "wealthy white men with tenure complaining" hits hard, and rightly so. I hope things will be so much better for you after this change!

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Tanya 13h ago

@caten I look forward to your farming adventures. I hope it brings you joy and peace and also a little more freedom to go down the branches of mathematics academia might not allow.

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Casey 13h ago

@caten @Uair Looking forward to hearing more about your farming endeavors! And best wishes on your new journey.

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instantiatethis 12h ago

@caten I relate to a lot of this but "I now feel that I don't care to fight the corporatization of academia for the rest of my life. I see wealthy white men with tenure endlessly complaining about university administrators maiming the academic system for personal gain. If they are subject to these forces in their own domain, what chance do I have against them?" In particular is something I have been struggling with recently.

Wish you lots of luck and rest on your journey

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Charlotte Aten 12h ago

@instantiatethis Thanks! I can imagine this kind of stuff hits libraries hard too. They're too awesome not to be messed with, unfortunately.

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instantiatethis 12h ago

@caten yes my recent reflection has been that I love libraries as punk anti establishment collectives but management likes them to be "nice" and "neutral" as the status quo must be maintained. Not sure how long to keep trying to circle that square because actually I quite like my square peg. For the moment I have the university buy as many queer, anti-racist, and anti-capitalist texts as I can justify.

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